Absence is never pretty
by Orit Ellan
Summary: Garak contemplates on how he allowed himself to be vulnerable – in all the wrong ways, and at all the wrong times.  Set after the end of the series


**Author's note: **Before you cry "stop right there, criminal scum!" and wave a fistful of accusations in my general direction: I confess. Whatever you think I did, I'm guilty. _Especially_ of _that_, yes.

**Disclaimer:** I totally do not own Garak (or Cardassians, or much of anything). And I'm not a native English speaker. So if I do some annoying, consistent error, enlighten me... gently. If the formatting looks weird, it's because it's the first time in a hundred years that I upload something on here. Oh, and before I forget, this is just something I threw together while waiting for my _other_ muse to return from his lunch break. It's meant to be just thoughts, and is written as such.

**Pairing(s): **It's... complicated. Garak/Bashir, in a sense...? I think? But also Julian/E. Dax.

**Summary: **_Garak contemplates on how he allowed himself to be vulnerable – in all the wrong ways, and at all the wrong times._

Love is a poison. Friendship even more so. Familiarity, oh, now _that's_ something I'd rather not talk about at all.

I've heard a saying: "You don't realize what you have, until it's gone" and well, it's a modification of the truth. It doesn't hit the target, but it's very close.

The_ real_ truth is, that no one can ever hurt you if you never had the luxury of knowing joy. Once you know joy, you will ultimately know misery. Joy is, therefore, vulnerability. Same with love, friendship and familiarity. If you never had any of them, you can never come to miss them.

I had the misfortune of getting to know love, friendship and familiarity. The last was the first I lost. Family. Then familiarity, in the sense that I could no longer affiliate with my own kind.

I learned to be lonely, I walked in cold and isolation, tucked away in a hollow world.

Now you may turn to me and say: "But isn't this cold, this hollow isolation of yours, this isolated existence, the true poison?" To which I will reply with a smile: "You have missed the point entirely, my dear friend."

You'll frown, and try to think, but you will never understand. I will give you a fair chance of understanding though, by explaining:

Had I never had family and familiarity in the first place, I would have never know what it would feel like to be denied those very same.

See, it's not the absence which causes the distress, absence is nothing, and nothing does _nothing_. Absence is a construction in the mind, a need or an expectation which isn't met. If there is no needs and no expectations, then there is no absence. If there is no absence, then there will be no pain.

So you see, it's quite simple: I had weakened myself by getting used to those kind of associations.

Some of the things I've learned through the years is that life offers change. Seeing it this way, staying alive would be the only source of hope for me. Aware of this fact, I realized that I had to hide away the hurt and focus on it's pure opposite. I believe you know how I did that.

Then I found a friend. And eventually I fell in love with him, not that he would notice. It was a silly game, anyway. I knew what I was getting myself into, and I'm by no means a fool; Love is joy, and joy is pain.

So, I've got no one but myself to blame. To be honest, I have no idea as to why I even tried. Maybe life was dull, and this... indulgence helped me maintain activity? Oh, if only to a slight degree.

I didn't know exactly how serious I was with it. Until it all boiled down to it and he ended up in his first truly serious relationship. And I, I ended up in a world of shattered mirrors and broken memories. Alone. Again.

And there is the absence, of course. It gnaws. I will make it, because I always do, but I reserve myself the right to think about it. If only in small portions.

I'm in pain. I sometimes wonder if it will always be this way. By nature, I'm a distrustful creature; all of my kind are. But, for some reason... I think I've gotten a bit further than that.

I know I lost a friend, as well as my heart. Someone else took my place, a place that for some stupid reason I took for granted. I saw myself as his constant companion, and I was so infatuated with the idea that when the obvious happened, I didn't see it. In a foolish way, I even encouraged it.

Naïve.

I am naïve, and don't dispute that, I will place a fist in your face if you do. Because I have the right to think this about myself. It is me, after all.

I thought that if I just... tried to be friendly to both of them, we could all go along together. That maybe if I just allowed it to happen, it would either wear off or simply be a side matter. Because seriously? Those two? No. Just... no! I could never have imagined...

I thought _she'd_ turn into a side matter. Instead, _I_ turned into a side matter. Oh, now that _is_ both tragic and moronic. I feel like Ceasar.

Which is my own fault. Obviously.

Would you like to know the most ironic thing of them all? I trusted him. I trusted him more than I trusted even my own parents. Don't give me that look... I _know_ I lie a lot, it's in my nature. What I mean is, I had intimacy in which trust was a part. So yes, while I may have toyed around with his poor mind a little, I still did, in fact trust him.

More so than I ever trusted anyone in the past. Or will, for that matter, in the future. Ah. Trust. Love. Friendship. Taking things for granted, baring emotions openly; Tain was right all along. And like a hormonal teenager, I just threw all those teachings out the nearest airlock.

With him (the doctor that is, not Tain), I felt belonging of the deepest, most intricate thing. It was more than love, more than an agreeable personality match. We were, we were... absolutely... so...

So...

It was so strong, I can't even find the right words for it. There. I hope that description is suffice.

Cardassians are, by nature, not jealous creatures. In fact, knowing a couple of things about our evolution, I think it's safe to say that we actually have a built in urge to _gather_ mate_s._ This thing about couples and one-to-one marriages are simply sprung from romanticism. Most people don't know, some even think that we're monogamous.

Well,_ we're not._

Maybe that's why I didn't react? Because my stupid, damned instincts told me that "ooh, Garak, this is completely natural, just let it be, everything will be all right!"

Well, damn that.

Thanks to those instincts of multiple mates, I'm now completely alone: Something which was designed to bring sociality into my life, isolated me. So now I'm all alone.

_Alone_. Where did everyone go? My mind is so confused. Why is it so silent? Why is no one touching me, talking to me? Where are the smiles, the idle conversations...? The random run ins? Where did fun go? Life? Where did _I _go?

I don't understand myself any longer. For a while, I thought I did. I thought that extracting myself from Julian would make things so much better for me. Never again would I have to take him into consideration while making choices...! I felt free.

Congratulations, myself, to this new, stupid freedom. I hope you enjoy it. Oh, wait, I don't. Well, isn't that a shame...?

You got exactly what you deserved, because you're both naïve and blind. This is what happens when you indulge in joy and dive into absurd love. Didn't I tell you so?

No, no, wait... that was Tain... who told me. I didn't. He did. Oh great. I'm now confusing myself with my father, and it's not even in a constructive manner.

I knew love, friendship and familiarity.

I now know their opposites.

You know, I never meant to trust him. I never should have. In fact, I suspect that maybe my trust was the catalyst which started all of this. Which eventually made him recoil and find someone else, another confidant. He wanted a mystery; he got me – plain, simple Garak – and he became disappointed. That must be it.

So in a sense, he never even loved me. He was only interested in the façade.

Wow, that doesn't make it hurt any less...! I'm really doing a capitol job at comforting myself here. Hey, brain, maybe you should try being a bit considerate once in a while...?

I am my own only friend, and I'm not even a good one. Oh dear. What a mess...

I lost friendship. I lost love. I am now alone in a broken world, and I know that any call for help will be left unanswered.

Maybe, just maybe, if I rebuild Cardassia, I will rebuild myself as well. Or at least change.

Because that is life – change. It's my only hope.

Trust is dead. Garak lives. Alone, perhaps, but persistent.

My happy ending, it seems, will just be the same old present, only this time it's wrapped in a different kind of paper.

Absence is never pretty, even if the ribbons are pink and glittery, and the paper white and shiny.


End file.
